Haiti

As the first anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake approaches, the questions that I asked then (below) remain unasked and unanswered by the Canadian media today. Apparently, as Garrett Hardin famously observed, no one ever dies from over-population. And no one ever dies from Canada's criminally irresponsible foreign aid and immigration policies, which are serving as birth stimulants to those nations--- like Haiti---which are given little incentive to address the root cause of their misery.

Why is Haiti's population explosion not identified as a key to their misery?

The CBC said that perhaps as many as 100,000 people died from the earthquake in Haiti. An earthquake of 7 on the Richter scale would cause casualties anywhere in the world. But how many deaths came because of shoddily constructed structures hastily built to accommodate a population that doubles every generation? Many were made of cinder blocks. The fact is, Haiti is too poor to adhere to safe building codes. But what causes their poverty? Overpopulation is surely a major factor. Rapid population growth overburdens already stretched financial and natural resources, impeding any ability to raise income and reduce food shortages. Some 25% of Haiti's population can't afford the caloric minimum of 2,240 calories recommended by the World Health Organization and 42% of Haiti's children under five are stunted in growth. With so many underfed and malnourished, it cannot be surprising that schools, hospitals and even the best homes cannot be constructed to a standard that will cope with earthquakes of this duration and magnitude. There is not so much a food shortage as a people 'longage'. The country's population grew by 36% in the two decades after 1982 to become the most densely populated nation in the Western Hemisphere, with an urban growth rate today of 3.4% that will, at that pace, double the size of Haiti cities most hard hit by this latest disaster. But alas, as the saying goes, nobody ever died from overpopulation. Yet overpopulation is the greatest emergency going, one which never excites media attention or public concern. Haiti's population of 8.5 million is projected to leap to 13 million by 2050, or 53%. But will the CBC or its commercial rivals mention that? Will they stress that Haitian women still give birth to an average of four children each because they have little access to contraceptive supplies? Or that the Catholic Church is a key blockade to that access? Not in your life. Government and non-government agencies will fall over themselves to rush to the scene, and anti-poverty Christian aid organizations like World Vision will re-double their efforts to provide medical care, food, clean water and nutrition. But they will do nothing to arrest an explosive process which consumes vital resources and diminishes the per capita wealth of each Haitian.

2. Is unconditional foreign aid and open-door immigration to Canada the best way to help Haiti?

Two years ago Stephen Harper handed over $300 million aid to the Haitian government in a photo op at Port au Prince. Not one penny went for birth control. Haitians see Canada's open door immigration policy as a chance to hit the jackpot by having a child become a Canadian citizen. This citizen can then sponsor relatives, and in the meantime send remittance money. No wonder almost one Haitian in a thousand emigrates. It is not surprising then, that two studies have linked high birth rates in poor countries or regions to the open immigration policies of destination countries (A.W Brittain, Social Biology 38 (1-2): 94-112, 1991 and D. Friedlander, Demography 20: 249-272, 1983). Open borders and global overpopulation go together like cigarettes and booze.

If we are determined to "help" Haiti, is this the best way to help them? Sending aid which in effect acts as a birth incentive? Then compounding that incentive by allowing the Haitian government and the Church to use us an escape hatch for their surplus population? How many Haitian tax cab drivers does Montreal need, anyway? How many Haitian votes does the Liberal Party need? Liberal leader Michael Ignatief is now calling for issuing more visas to Haitians, fast tracking the family reunification process---and are you ready--- ending deportations. Dishonesty pays if you wait for a disaster. Why doesn't the CBC raise these issues?

3. How does Haitian immigration help Canada?

It is interesting that CBC and Ottawa's political class love to trumpet the appointment of a Haitian Governor General or a Vietnamese refugee to lead Canada's Catholic church as example of how wonderfully "tolerant" we are. How long will we perpetuate this self-image of Canada as a land of opportunity, a place that needs buckets of newcomers to inject a vitality and drive that native born Canadians allegedly don't have? Isn't this immigrant-makes-good mythology wearing a little thin in 2010? The family farm is dead. Killed by agribusiness and the development and subdivision of prime farmland by immigration-driven population growth. We don't need waves of immigrants to homestead anymore. Our secondary industry is dead. Killed by trade agreements and globalization. The smokestack era is over. We don't need more people from any source to "build" the country, to create a reserve army of cheap surplus labour to drive down wages and displace jobs.

Canada is already over-built. Our best arable land is under threat from development, with nearly 20% of our Class 1 farmland already lost. Ontario, which has been lost 600,000 acres of prime farmland in the decade preceding 2006, is slated to add another 6 million people to the Golden Horseshoe in two more decades. Dr. Michael Healy also warned, in a federally-commissioned study of the Fraser Eco-Basin, that Metro-Vancouver and the Fraser Valley was already overpopulated in 1997 by factor of three, and that immigration-fuelled urban growth in other major Canadian localities would wreak the same havoc if not unchecked. He cited immigration as a major force in that growth, and not bad land-use planning, which is under the control of developer-controlled town councils.

So why do we celebrate immigrant success stories? Why does CBC icon Peter Mansbridge presume to speak for all Canadians when he declares that the appointment of Father Vincent Nguyen as the new Roman Catholic bishop is a story that "will lift our hearts.?" We need new folklore. The old formula is not appropriate to our present predicament. We need stories about Canadians who got the job done, not more CBC portraits of immigrants who turned their lives around by turning ours upside down. I wonder if there is a program on Saudi Arabian or Libyan TV entitled "Little Church on the Desert"? I wonder if Haitians would celebrate the appointment of a guy called Smith from Saskatoon as their new head of state? Or if they would import educated Canadians to drive their taxis and then have a pity party about how their credentials aren't recognized? I rather doubt that they would be that stupid.

I for one am sick of CBC puppeteers pulling our heartstrings while neglecting the hardships suffered by people right here. I am sick of their deification of the immigrant and their denigration of the Canadian-born. I am sick of the kind of journalism that focuses on the struggles of a downtrodden illegal refugee to put food on the table at the expense of Canada's working poor who are squeezed out by this competition. I am sick of a taxpayer-funded corporation that consistently reports the frustration of a foreign born engineer in not finding employment in his field when Canadian engineering graduates, burdened by a mountain of student debt, must rely on minimum wage jobs or the patronage of parents to see them through. In short, I am sick of PC bias. I am sick to death of the CBC. (Canadian Bleeding-heart Crap). By all means let’s help Haiti, but let’s do it right this time.

Tim Murray

January 14, 2010

It has become a tradition in my community, the island of Dr. David Hypocrite, to hold an annual fundraiser for the Philippines. On the face of it, the income raised by these events to help develop pre-school programs in seven villages in Luzon sounds like an unmitigated good. After all, what could be wrong about helping over a 1,100 children and their families? Actually, a lot. But tell that to people here, who regard attendance at this bazaar almost like a mark of civic responsibility and a gesture of community solidarity.

For me, unconditional aid of any kind to nations like the Philippines is an act of criminal irresponsibility and ignorance. The same kind of irresponsibility and ignorance which permits self-righteous environmentalists to birth or sire two or more carbon footprints, but mount the moral high-horse because they recycle their garbage or save paper. Rage compelled me to write the attached diatribe. Distributing it would be what Jack Alpert calls "Pissing in your own soup." I have to live here among the wolves, so the prudent course would be to follow Lenin’s advice that "You then must howl like a wolf." Handing it out to those in attendance would be equivalent to wearing a sandwich board that says "Legalize Pedophilia".

Then again, it is not like I could hurt my reputation. I am irreparably isolated--politically and socially. Like a pig farmer in Saudi Arabia. It is nature's paradise, but Bertoldt Brecht's hell. In a small communities like this, where one ruling clique controls the politics and the media, to get along, one must "go along". And as you know, that just isn't my style. You might as well tell a fish to start walking.

Does invective and insult achieve anything? Certainly. It makes me feel good--- and Sierrans should relate to that because all of their activities seem to be about feeling good about yourself rather than changing anything. As Kirkpatrick Sale remarked, “The whole individualist what-you-can-do-to-save-the-earth guilt trip is a myth. We, as individuals, are not creating the crises, and we can’t solve them.” The role of the activist is not to "feel good", nor is it, as Derrick Jensen said, " ... to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems." But of course, soft green environmentalists are not about challenging the growth economy or stopping growth, but managing it. Voila---"smart growth". It's smart to accept growth because they that way corporate donors like Encana natural gas, RBC and the TD Bank will keep sending donations to their beloved NGOs. (How can greens feel good about that?).

Mindless philanthropy is now, apparently, a national trait. Prime Minister Harper reflected that Canadian character flaw recently when he asked Canadians to "open their hearts and their wallets to Pakistan." Another country on the road of reckless fecundity which, if it doesn't get its demographic act together, is set to double its population in a generation, thus wiping out any benefits that flow from foreign aid. Canada is on the sucker list of Haiti, Afghanistan, central Africa or any basket case that refuses to send their bishops and mullahs packing so that people can get the family planning they need. But then, why should they? They will get our assistance anyway.

Tim Murray

September 16, 2010
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So much for the efforts of soft-headed volunteers in the Quadra Philippine Connection
A gauntlet thrown at the community

You have possibly heard of the “Labour of Sisyphus”, the ancient Greek fable about futility. Poor Sisyphus struggled to role a boulder up a hill, only to see roll all the way back down to the bottom, where he would have to struggle to roll it all the way back up, to see it roll down to the bottom once more. But who knows, may be he was a New-Age Buddhist Quadra fool volunteering for the annual fundraiser for the Philippines. One thing about these gentle cretins of good intentions, they can b e counted on not to do any research for themselves. “In the Sierra Club and Delai Lama We Trust” might be the inscription on any coins if they were minted here. What does aid of any kind do for a country that will not control its own numbers? What has it done for Haiti? For Afghanistan? For Africa?

Sir Bob Geldoff was, for all intents and purposes, the father of forty million Ethiopians. When Ethiopian was a starving nation of 40 million people in 1985, Geldoff organized his “Band Aid “ concert to recruit global sympathy and philanthropy to rescue that nation’s children. Result , those children grew up to have sire or birth many times their number, so Ethiopia’s population doubled in 25 years and now 6.2 million people are starving. As Dr. Russell Hopfenberg has demonstrated, the more food that is made available, the more the population will grow up to meet that supply. Human beings are just like any other species in that regard. But what makes us different is that we have the ability to limit our numbers with birth control programs. Over a generation, the results can be dramatic. 25 years ago Thailand was in the same pathetic basket case as the Philippines. But they decided to embark on family planning, while the Philippines did not. The result is predictable. Thailand has been able to feed its population, while the Philippines still languishes in misery. Like Sisyphus, it labours to double its housing, its schools, its medical clinics and food supply every generation just to stay in the same spot.

“The Philippine population in the early 1990s continued to grow at a rapid, although somewhat reduced rate from that which had prevailed in the preceding decades. In 1990 the Philippine population was more than 66 million, up from 48 million in 1980. This figure represents an annual growth rate of 2.5 percent, down from 2.6 percent in 1980 and from more than 3 percent in the 1960s. Even at the lower growth rate, the Philippine population will increase to an estimated 77 million by the year 2000 and will double every twenty-nine years into the next century. Moreover, in 1990 the population was still a youthful one, with 57 percent under the age of twenty. The birth rate in early 1991 was 29 per 1,000, and the death rate was 7 per 1,000. The infant mortality rate was 48 deaths per 1,000 live births. Population density increased from 160 per square kilometer in 1980 to 220 in 1990. The rapid population growth and the size of the younger population has required the Philippines to double the amount of housing, schools, and health facilities every twenty-nine years just to maintain a constant level.” http://countrystudies.us/philippines/34.htm

What makes this possible? In a nutshell, unconditional foreign aid, that is, aid not made conditional on birth control. Why don’t countries like this, governed as they are by religious ignorance, make family planning accessible to women? Apart from the fact that partriarchal political, religious and domestic authority denies so many women of that choice? Simply put, because they have no incentive to do so. Credulous dupes and well-meaning sadists in private agencies work to keep the gravy train coming. And governments like Canada dole out money unconditionally. In Haiti, for example, Harper handed out $300 million in aid in 2008, to much fanfare in Port-au-Prince, and to the acclaim of CBC Pravda. But not a single dollar went to condoms or birth control pills. The result is runaway population growth and starvation. In January 2007 a committee of the Canadian Senate concluded that 40 years of development aid totalling $575 billion dollars had only made Africans more miserable and wretched at a higher population level. A level that has resulted in more clearcut forests and loss of wildlife habitat, more environmental degradation. The life support system of the human population.

The aid agencies of countries like Canada are not supplicants. We have bargaining power and leverage. We have the money and too many countries need it. We can set the terms. If African dictators or mullahs and priests won’t accept our terms, there are many other countries like Madagascar who will, and use it to limit families and control growth. We can either focus on the endless enterprise of saving lives, or we can end the cycle of poverty by focusing on preventing lives from being born. Those who protract misery by their mindless philanthropy and volunteer fund-raising efforts are practitioners of cruelty wrapped in the guise of sainthood. As Garrett Hardin said, “There is nothing more dangerous than a compassionate shallow thinking person.”

Helping people is not about feeling good about yourself, it is about achieving positive long-term results for them. What would you prefer if you were laying injured in a roadside accident---to be assisted by a clumsy, incompetent do-gooder who with his good intentions paralyzed you for life by moving you when he shouldn ‘t have been? Or to be attended to by a cold hearted bastard who employed his first aid training to treat you proficiently? The Bill Gates, Stephen Lewises, Bob Geldoffs and Mother Theresas are the clumsy do-gooders. The birth control promoters are the people who will actually improve a people’s long term quality of life. Use your brain, not your Quadra group-think herd instinct. Better to do nothing than do to harm. The Philippines needs to be starved to their senses, not be given what amounts to perpetual birth incentives. Would you give money to a drunken panhandler? Would you continue to give lunch money to your teenager if you knew he was spending it on drugs? If you were a bank manager would you make loans without setting down conditions? Then why would you help those who will not agree to help themselves?

Try thinking for yourself for a change. And direct your money and your time to effective foreign aid through family planning initiatives.

Tim Murray

Email from Alison Thompson sent to her parents in Sutherland Shire (Sydney)on 24 January 2010.
Alison is due to receive an Australia Day award. Candobetter knows nothing about Alison; we just published this letter because it came from a reliable source. We would like to know more and to have a picture of Alison if possible.

Hell in Haiti

Hi mum and dad,

I won't be around when they announce my award on January 26th. I am with Sean Penn, Diana Jenkins, Oscar and 15 doctors embedded in the 82 Airborne ( USA) Dante would describe it as hell here. There is no food and water and hundreds dying daily. The aid is all bottlenecked and not reaching here. The other day I assisted with amputation (holding them down) while they used a saw to cut a young boys leg off with no pain killers. Today I went with a strike force and army patrol in hummers into the streets and walked 5 miles through the camps set up on every street corner. Sewage and bodies stench is everywhere. As I attend to a patient 30 people crowd around me and it's hard to breath. I nearly fainted today as the sewage smell went straight down my throat. I went white and dizzy but couldn't sit down as sewage is running through the streets. There is much infection and it feels like the job is too big. No antibiotics anywhere.

Good news, today our new york doctors evacuated 18 patients with spinal injuries out to Miami and we're all so excited. Our mash unit is in the 82 air base overlooking a refugee camp of over 50000 people. The refugees start singing Christian songs at 4 am and line up for food until the army hands it out at 8 am. (That's if there is any food).

On the first night I was in the nearby jungle camping under the stars with my team and woke up to the beautiful music drawing me to them. I thought it was a church and we went to find it and came across the 82 Airborne camp and the refugee camp. (That's how we ended up here) as it wasn't safe to stay where we were even though we had our own security force. We are totally self sufficent with food, gas and medicines and have a private donor (Diana Jenkins who was a refugee in camps in Bosnia as a child - her family died of starvation in the camps. ) Sean Penn is here purely as a volunteer and is cutting through bureaucracy to get aid moving and food water and medicines to the people. There is no agenda but to save lives. Helicopters fly over head and it feels like Vietnam. That night 50,000 people sung me to sleep and they sing every night for the world to save them. There is always hope but she's not here right now.

Alison xxx

My writing is a mess as it's on iPhone and keeps changing my words and the generator is on for a few hours but I know it's important to tell the world. Please send to any press who may call or family and friends.

Australia Day Award update

Ms Alison THOMPSON of Cronulla NSW 2230 today (26 January 2010) received the Order of Australia for service to humanitarian aid, particularly the people of the Peraliya region of Sri Lanka following the Boxing Day
2004 Tsunami.

SOURCE:

This was sent to me by the Women On Boards list, with the following message:
"It is rare that Women on Boards publicises a cause, however the following email is from a woman who will be in tomorrows' Australia Day Honours List - and is a sobering reminder of our very great fortune to live in this country. Please pass it on if you wish."

Candobetter Ed: I have edited some typos out and put in a bit of punctuation.

...

Are troops what Haiti needs?

In the above news item, "Are Troops what Haiti needs?" Produced by Jesse Freeston, Reporter Ansel Herz says, "At one of the hospitals in Haiti that was not crushed there are basically just a few Haitian doctors there Haitian Red Cross then a team of French doctors probably about seven of them ... They're basically treating like one or two people at a time... They're poorly equipped. They don't have all the supplies that they need. ..There are hundreds of people outside this hospital in tents, waiting for some kind of care, many of them have been there for days." (Ed. There were similar reports on the French news a few days ago, and also that the US forces were more or less controlling the one airport and stopping other nations from helping the Haitians.) Ansel Herz also comments on the hyping of looting themes broadcast by mainstream news in Britain, with pictures showing two men trying to get items out of a collapsed building. He says that he has not seen any looting and that people are trying to find food and are sharing it with each other.

After the earthquake in Haiti, America is seen coming to the aid of the Haitians, with its mighty military power, although aid has been sent, it is not getting through to the people, which may be purposely done to plunge Haiti into rioting and looting that will need the U.S. soldiers to step in and declare military rule. This will be the prelude to yet another puppet government put into place to serve the U.S. Imperialists.

Disaster Capitalism and the Shock Doctrine

The clip above is of Naomi Klein talking about "disaster capitalism" as described in her book, The Shock Doctrine

The Shock Doctrine or 'disaster capitalism' has been observed many times before. (See review of Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine here.)

After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts. New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened. After 9/11 The White house passed the patriot act.

These events are examples of the shock doctrine: using the public's disorientation following massive collective shocks - wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy, which advantages the US and its major financial organisations and corporations. Conditions are imposed, such as the selling off of publicly owned water and power to private companies when people who would normally unite to resist this are unable to organise against it due to fighting for their lives against a natural disaster.

The clip from The Real News also has footage from an interview with Peter Hallward, author of Damming the Flood, on sustained interference by recent US presidents, Bush and Clinton, and financiers with the ability of the twice reelected Haitian president, President Aristides, to carry out his election program. Bush and Clinton have already become involved in the US Disaster Aid program. This is a real problem for Haiti and for the world.

Haiti: There's no such thing as a curse
by

First published, in French at Mondialisation.ca, 15 January 2010
Translated by Sheila Newman

How often do we hear the expression "cursed" in conjunction with Haiti's situation? As if, rather than consider the real political causes, we would rather trust in God. It's easier. Less dangerous.

God doesn't send accounts, after all. God cannot be reelected or not reelected after 4 years. The recent history of Haiti is largely that of a dispossessed country, broken, a country that liberal economics has demolished.

US abolished law stopping foreign-ownership

It wasn't God that landed on the island in 1915 and occupied it for 20 years; it was American marines that allowed Washington to abolish the clause in the Constitution that prevented foreigners from owning businesses in the country. Thousands of inhabitants were dispossessed. Giant plantations were created. Because of an army that was busier fighting its own people than anything else, it was permitted for 1% of the population to own 50% of the resources of the country.

It wasn't God either that supported Duvalier's terrible dictatorship for decades, Duvalier who was more interested in enriching himself than in building a country worthy of the name. It was France and the United States.

Political and Economic interference disastrous

And it wasn't God who overthrew Aristide, in 2004, after he had again abolished the army (as he had done in the 1990s, but was then overthrown by a coup d'Etat) and after he tried to oppose the privatisations and the external control of the country, but clearly and simply the United States, Canada and France, who replaced Aristide with the neo-liberal economist, Gérard Latortue.

It wasn't God who destroyed this country; it was Men of flesh and blood, Men who preferred to fill their pockets rather than to fight against poverty, to support a central government capable of applying stricter standards of housing or of fighting the deforestation that makes cyclones so much more dangerous.

Many other countries are hit by natural disasters. How many times has Cuba been touched by cyclones as strong as those that have hit Haiti? How many times has Japan been the victim of earthquakes just as violent as those which hit Haiti yesterday? It wasn't God that destroyed Haiti; it was Men. It wasn't God that protected the other countries; it was Men who decided it should be that way.

Sending a few dollars to Haiti is good, but that won't change the system. No-one is against charity, but you don't build a society on charity.

We could bury Haiti under thousands of millions of million billion dollars and the problem wouldn't be fixed. Haiti is the failure of a country without a strong central state, corrupted to the marrow, dispossessed of itself by ideological choices made by foreign countries.

Haiti is the result of a catastrophic history to which have been added the catastrophe of economic reforms that have diluted the power of the State, whilst creating a de facto libertarian paradise built on luck and make-do, where the lack of any social cohesion gives rise to the worst aberrations.

The best way to help the Haitians isn't to send them money. It is by demanding that each of our governments but out so that, finally, once and for all, the Haitians can be responsible for their bad luck and their good luck.

So that, finally, we stop blaming God and instead we look at what we Men can do for this destroyed land.

And perhaps, also, remembering that our governments have Haitian blood on their hands and that they are directly responsible for that unspeakable catastrope because of their persistent interference to stop Haiti developing.

We can add these tens of thousands of deaths to the tragic total of savage capitalism; they are less visible than the victims of 'communism', but just as dead!

Maybe that's another advantage of having God at your sides ...

Source: Louis Préfontaine's blog.

http://louisprefontaine.com/

Articles de Louis Préfontaine publiés par Mondialisation.ca

A blogsite called "Catholic Dialogue" sounds so extreme in its condemnation of feminism, contraception and women's choice that you wonder if it's actually a joke. The blogsite warns people not to donate to Caritas Haiti because they support condoms, the celebration of Women's International Day and present a 'negative image of the Catholic Church'!

Please DO therefore consider donating to Caritas Haiti. Their site is here. And thanks, Catholic Dialogue, for telling us about them. They have survived the earthquake, I just learned, although their bank did not. They expect to post details of where to send help tomorrow.

The unnamed author of Catholic Dialogue links us to another blog called "SOCON or Bust because Liberalism is killing us" where someone called Pachecho has written:

"The principal organization which Development & Peace has named to assist in the country, Caritas Haiti, is likely an abortion-supporting organization too. They have a “strategy” plan that says women are discriminated against in the Church and that women do not control their “reproduction”. In addition, Population Services International– which specializes in, among other things “reproductive health” is a donor to Caritas Haiti and describes them as one of their “partners”."

So, please, DO therefore consider donating to Caritas Haiti. Their site is here.

Here Caritas Haiti describes the objectives of a plan called "Strategic operational plan 2006 – 2011; Development program; Strategic sub-program: Promotion of Women's rights.

"Analysis of the Problematic situation

Problems

Feminisation of poverty;
Low participation of women in political activity in the country;
More women are illiterate;
Very few women own businesses;
Lack of services adapted or to specific training for their reproductive health;
Women don't know about their rights or the written law;
Increased violence against women;
Increase in the level of girls who leave school early;
Women suffer discrimination through laws which give men priority;
Low support for women who are victims of violence;
Men fail to assume their family responsibilities, which then increases the weight of responsibility on the women;
Discrimination against women inside the Church, in the family, and in society;
The majority of women live in de facto relationships without legal recourse in case of conflict with their partner;
Women do not control their reproductive capacity
Women do not have access to information.
Women's work is not valued.
The majority of women do not have an occupation or profession.
Women are not emancipated and refuse to enter activities which are considered masculin
They don't know their rights and are not able to properly fulfil their role in communities and exercise their political rights;
The health of women deteriorates and becomes fragile because of their difficult living condition;

Causes

Women have little access to education and training;
Women's organisations are poorly structured;
Poor standard of means and tools to permit women to look after their issues;
Poor level of salaries for women compared to men's in the same or comparable work;
Poor access to resources;
Poor access to professional training by young girls in the country;
Sexual discrimination;
Women have no economic power;
Women are not sufficiently trained;
Women lack good knowledge of their basic rights;
Negligence and absence of parents;
Women are not sufficiently professionally specialised;
Customs, traditions and stereotypes are unfavourable to women;
Women are systematically excluded;
Social and familial discrimination;
Lack of health infrastructure (hospitals, pharmacies, health centers)
Women lack leadership;
Poor access to health services in remote areas;
Low consideration for gender equity in families;
Socio-economic degradation;
High rate of unemployment (55.4% of unemployed people are women)
Paternal irresponsibility.

Consequences:

Women's dependent situation prevents them from negotiating their sexuality and the power of birth control;
They are not able to manage to meet their needs and take control and they fall into poverty;
Women are afraid to admit to being ill (breast cancer, uterine cancer, sexually transmitted illnesses etc)
Out of proportion population growth;
Street children are increasing with mothers unable to cope;
Increasing numbers of girls in the streets and in domestic service;
Separation and division - (single parent households);
Lack of confidence and self-esteem in women;
Violence and abuse of women;
Decision-making roles are entirely occupied by men;
Gender equity is not adequately taken into account in development projects;
Increase migration of women;
Women are marginalised;
Increased women's death rate
Increasing rates of AIDS in women;
Women are excluded and exploited."

Ugly competition for funding or pure religious fundamentalism?

Back on the Catholic Dialogue blog it all looks like an indecent scramble for the money that the earthquake will bring has suddenly erupted; the catholic dialogue is so crude:

Canada's Development and Peace Catholic organisation of "channelling Haiti emergency funding through dubious 'partner'"! And readers are crudely urged not to make their contribution through them.

And Catholic Dialogue goes on in an obscene focus on dogma minutiae while people are buried alive:

"Even though they don't use the word "contraception", the wording used here is eerily similar to the typical euphemisms used by the pro-choice crowd. The wording used above is not necessarily in contradiction with Church teaching. Indeed, the decision to have children or even to engage in sex should be a joint decision between husband and wife. That's why the Church teaches that even married couples must sometimes practice chastity. So if Haitian men are forcing themselves on their wives without their approval, that's akin to rape. But if that were the true intention of Caritas Haiti's education programs, they should have been more prudent with their wording. The way it's currently written sounds too much like feminist drivel about a woman's "right to control her body". We all know what that really means.

I contacted Caritas Haiti to obtain clarification of these statements on their website, but I still haven't heard back from them. They must be swamped due to the earthquake. May God help them."

Gee, I wonder what's stopping Caritas Haiti from answering these urgent questions.

But, wait, there's more. Apparently the US government has partners in AID who are, gasp, shock, horror...

"Distributing condoms on behalf of the U.S. government?

"On the website of the United States President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, you can find a list of the "partners" that work with the U.S. government to prevent the spread of AIDS. Among the list I found this:

"Is Caritas Haiti only involved in the "Abstinence/Be Faithful" programs, or are they also pushing condoms? I really hope it's the former. The same website contains a document that lists Caritas Haiti among the groups promoting "Abstinence/Be Faithful" programs. I hope that's the extent of their work on this project.

"On another site, I found a detailed curriculum for Catholic high schools in Haiti entitled Instruction curriculum for education on life, family, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS for Catholic secondary schools in Haiti. Caritas Haiti helped write this curriculum with other organizations. As far as I can tell, the curriculum teaches students to practice abstinence until marriage, which is very good. There is no mention of contraception. So we don't know for sure whether Caritas Haiti is involved in distributing contraceptives under the US government program, but the statements from their own website suggest that they are probably doing so in another context."

And, finally - at least that's all I'm going to quote -

"They helped organize the 2008 International Women's Day in Haiti

"If you visit the website of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) you'll discover that Caritas Haiti received a grant of more than $30,000 in 2008 for "Support for a Binational March to Celebrate International Women's Day - March 8, 2008". While I don't know for sure, I imagine that "Binational" refers to the two countries that share the island: Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

"In case you didn't know, International Women's Day has become an annual manifestation for radical feminists around the world to promote abortion rights and contraception. What the heck is Caritas Haiti doing supporting this event?"

Notice for International Women's Day in Rye, Victoria Australia.

And by the way folks, while we are on the subject, International Women's Day in Victoria, Australia is on the 8th of March, at 3 Lyon's Street Rye at the Women's house - that 'Purple Place'. (03) 59855955 [email protected]
Women will have the microphone all day and there will be lots to eat and lots of speakers. There will be the usual ceremony at the end of the Rye pier with a period of silence and respect for women who have died in war and through other crimes of violence against women. I think that after I send them this article, they will be talking a lot about the poor women of Haiti, who, in addition to sharing the horrors of an earthquake, must bear the injuries and indignities of Catholic Church anti-women ideology.

How the tragic situation of Haiti's overpopulation and poverty came about? There were not always 9m hungry people there. When this once rich and beautiful island was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, it was inhabited by a population of about 100,000 Amerindians, living in a steady state economy. The Amerindians refused to mine gold for the Spanish, so the Spanish imported many thousands of slaves from Africa. The French took the whole island over in 1697 and it remained their most lucrative possession until 1825, despite the inhabitants claiming independence and freedom from slavery under the French Revolution of 1789. At that time there were few Amerindians but about 400,000 African slaves and 100,000 colonists. Added on 17 Jan 2010. Slavery is ongoing in Haiti.

We should never forget that the wealth of the developed world was originally built on the slave trade, until coal and oil became cheaper than slaves. And slaving is still going on in Haiti, as A Crime so Monstrous shows.

The Island of Hispaniola, which Haiti, on the western end, shares with the Dominican Republic to the east, was discovered by Christopher Columbus. In colonial times Haiti was known as Saint-Domingue. The west was rich in minerals, notably gold, but the east lacked minerals. The Amerindian population refused to be slaves, so the Spanish imported slaves from Africa to dig up the minerals and farm crops of sugar and coffee for export. On the east side French buccaneers set up camp and, in 1697, the whole island became a French possession. After vicious trade-wars with Britain and other countries lasting on and off for a century, Saint-Domingue was the only French colony left. At the time though, Haiti was the jewel that every country craved. One in eight French people derived their income directly or indirectly from that slave colony and picked it clean. Its GNP was around a third the size of the French mainland economy in 1789.

In 1789 the people of Saint-Domingue, being French, successfully claimed representation in the French revolutionary parliament, which banned slavery. But the French elite would not let go of their cash-cow so easily. The slaves fought courageously for freedom against colonial soldiers from Spain, England and France.

Slavery was formally re-established by Napoleon in 1802 after many battles.

It was not until 1833 that the French State recognised the independence of Saint-Domingue, which took the name Haiti. Incredibly Charles X extorted massive reparations from the Haitians, although so many Europeans had lived off their backs and their land for well over two centuries. The island was impoverished through the payment of the 'debt' which was paid by 1833. Whereas, at the end of the 15th century, shortly after discovery by Christopher Columbus, the population was about 100,000 indigenous Amerindians, following the discovery of gold, by the time of the French Revolution and its own revolutions, it had been unsustainably bloated by continuous importation of massive volumes of slaves from Africa, to a total around 400,000, plus 100,000 Europeans. In 2010, with a population estimated at around 9 million, it is among the poorest states in the world.

Yet, just before the French Revolution, Saint-Domingue was the biggest producer of sugar in the world and produced more than half the coffee in the world. Its external trade was more than one third of metropolitan France’s. One in eight French people lived directly or indirectly from its product, which depended on enslavement of the inhabitants.

This is what happens when a population is deracinated and disorganised in an economy where the only way of getting a living is by your hands. Remember how the original Amerindians had a small and steady population? So did the Africans in the countries from which they were taken. Artificial stimulation of population growth has disastrous consequences, even when it is not done by elites for outright slavery. Haitians have little money for food, let alone contraception, and little access to either.

Poor Haiti. And now this terrible earthquake.

It makes me really angry when all you hear in the news is that the Haitians were the first slaves to get independence and then of how they squabbled. I think that we can safely assume that they may have independence but that the old slave economy has remained, with wages very hard to come by, and that this overt poverty has permitted the classic slave trade to continue, as the book, A Crime so Monstrous, by Benjamin Skinner, shows.

"Chavannes says today’s “dramatic situation” has deeper roots. Delayed agricultural reform is partly to blame, he says, with no proper sharing out of land since independence in 1804, when division of the land of poor slaves amongst the generals merely produced what he refers to as “neo-slavery”. “Agrarian reform is pressing”, says Chavannes, pointing out that 80% of local court cases involve haggles over who has jurisdiction over which parcel of land.

Up to the 1960s however, Haiti was self-sufficient in food. After which the neo-liberalist regime began to bite and gradually destroyed local production, rice, poultry and eggs industry being examples. Since then, the country has suffered from a lack of political commitment to the sector, he argues." Source: Serge Gilles (Leader of the Fusion des Sociaux Democrates Haitienne - Haitian Social Democratic Fusion Party)

NOTES

Editor's note: Additional information about the slave trade in Haiti was included on 17 January 2010.